3 WITCH.

"I, last night, lay all alone

O' the ground to heare the mandrake grone;
And pluckt him up, though he grew full low:
And, as I had done, the cocke did crow."

4 WITCH.

"And I ha' beene chusing out this scull
From charnell houses that were full;
From private grots and publike pits;
And frighted a sexton out of his wits."

5 WITCH.

"Under a cradle I did crepe

By day; and, when the childe was a-sleepe
At night, I suck'd the breath, and rose

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And pluck'd the nodding nurse by the nose."

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6 WITCH.

"I had a dagger; what did I with that? Killed an infant to have his fat.

A piper it got at a church-ale;

I bade him again blow wind i' the taile."

7 WITCH.

"A murderer, yonder, was hung in chaines;

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The sunne and the wind had shrunke his veines;
I bit off a sinew; I clipp'd his haire;

I brought off his ragges that danc'd i' the ayre."

8 WITCH.

"The scrich-owles egges and the feathers blacke, The bloud of the frogge, and the bone in his backe I have been getting; and made of his skin

A purset, to keepe Sir Cranion in.”

9 WITCH.

"And I ha' beene plucking (plants among) Hemlock, henbane, adders-tongue,

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Night-shade, moone-wort, libbards-bane;

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And twise by the dogges was like to be tane."

10 WITCH.

"I, from the jawes of a gardiner's bitch,

Did snatch these bones, and then leap'd the ditch;
Yet went I back to the house againe,

Kill'd the blacke cat, and here is the braine."

11 WITCH.

"I went to the toad breedes under the wall, I charmed him out, and he came at my call; I scratch'd out the eyes of the owle before;

I tore the batts wing,-what would you have more?"

DAME.

"Yes, I have brought, to helpe your vows,
Horned poppie, cypresse boughes,

The fig-tree wild that growes on tombes,
And juice that from the larch-tree comes,
The basiliskes bloud, and the vipers skin:
And now our orgies let's begin.'

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XXV.

Robin Good-Fellow.

Alias Pucke, alias Hobgoblin, in the creed of ancient superstition, was a kind of merry sprite, whose character and achievements are recorded in this ballad, and in those well-known lines of Milton's L'Allegro, which the antiquarian Peck supposes to be owing to it:

"Tells how the drudging Goblin swet

To earn his creame-bowle duly set:
When in one night, ere glimpse of morne,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,

And stretch'd out all the chimneys length,
Bask at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matins rings."

The reader will observe, that our simple ancestors had reduced all these whimsies to a kind of system, as regular, and perhaps more

consistent, than many parts of classic mythology: a proof of the extensive influence and vast antiquity of these superstitions. Mankind, and especially the common people, could not everywhere have been so unanimously agreed concerning these arbitrary notions, if they had not prevailed among them for many ages. Indeed, a learned friend in Wales assures the Editor, that the existence of fairies and goblins is alluded to by the most ancient British bards, who mention them under various names, one of the most common of which signifies "The spirits of the mountains." See also preface to Song xxv.

This song, which Peck attributes to Ben Jonson (though it is not found among his works), is chiefly printed from an ancient black-letter copy in the British Museum. It seems to have been originally intended for some Masque.

This ballad is entitled, in the old black-letter copies, "The merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow. To the tune of Dulcina," &c. (See No. xiv. above.)

FROM Oberon, in fairye land,

The king of ghosts and shadowes there,

Mad Robin I, at his command,

Am sent to viewe the night-sports here.
What revell rout

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And make good sport, with ho, ho, ho!

More swift than lightening can I flye

About this aery welkin soone,

And, in a minutes space, descrye

Each thing that's done belowe the moone.

There's not a hag

Or ghost shall wag

Or

cry, "Ware Goblins!" where I go,

But Robin I

Their feates will spy,

And send them home, with ho, ho, ho!

Whene'er such wanderers I meete,

As from their night-sports they trudge home,

With counterfeiting voice I greete
And call them on with me to roame

Thro' woods, thro' lakes,

Thro' bogs, thro' brakes;

Or else, unseene, with them I go,
All in the nicke

To play some tricke

And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!

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Sometimes I meete them like a man;

Sometimes, an ox; sometimes, a hound!

And to a horse I turn me can,

To trip and trot about them round.
But if, to ride,

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My backe they stride,

More swift than wind away I go,
Ore hedge and lands,

Thro' pools and ponds

I whirry, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

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With possets and with juncates fine,

When lads and lasses merry be,

Unseene of all the company,

I eat their cakes and sip their wine;
And, to make sport

I fart and snort;

The maids I kiss ;

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And out the candles I do blow;

They shrieke, "Who's this?"

I answer nought, but ho, ho, ho!

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Yet now and then, the maids to please,
At midnight I card up their wooll;

And while they sleepe and take their ease,
With wheel to threads their flax I pull.
I grind at mill

Their malt up still ;

I dress their hemp, I spin their tow.

If any 'wake,

And would me take,

I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When house or harth doth sluttish lye,
I pinch the maidens black and blue;
The bed-clothes from the bedd pull I,
And lay them naked all to view.

When any need to borrowe ought,

We lend them what they do require; And for the use demand we nought; Our owne is all we do desire.

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And night by night,

I them affright

With pinchings, dreames, and ho, ho, ho!

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When men do traps and engins set

In loop holes, where the vermine creep,

Who from their foldes and houses get

Their duckes and geese, and lambes and sheepe,

I spy the gin,

And enter in,

And seeme a vermine taken so;
But when they there

Approach me neare,

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I leap out laughing, ho, ho, ho!

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